Not all mistakes are as innocent, said James Bundy, the south regional director for the National Student Clearinghouse.Bundy's company, based in Herndon, Va., is one of several computerized databases used specifically for degree verification.

Troubles not new

A former registrar at N.C. State, Bundy said that resume fraud has been a problem long before O'Leary's case helped bring it to the public's attention.

"I used to have a folder a couple feet thick of students who tried to use false transcripts or degrees on their resume, and those were only the hundreds we found," Bundy said."There are hundreds more out there that we didn't catch or know about.I'd hate to think how big that folder is now."

A 2001 survey by Kessler International, a prominent national investigation firm, found that more than 25 percent of the 1,000 resumes it reviewed for a technology company two years prior, contained incorrect information or false credentials.

Bundy has a term to describe those resumes.He calls them "puffed."

He said the emergence of the Internet is one reason so many more of them are getting caught than in the past.

"People have been getting by with it for so long, they figure, why not?"he said."Maybe now they're thinking before they do it, because there's more of a chance they'll get caught."

Heightened awareness

...

Bundy said that requests to his company for credential checks have gone up significantly in the past six months.

Although the National Student Clearinghouse serves more than 300 colleges and universities nationwide, none of the four Cape Fear region schools are members.